


For We Are Many

by Erisden



Category: Legion (TV), New Mutants, X-Men Legacy
Genre: Astral Projection, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Confusion, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Healing, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, Multiple Personalities, Mutant Powers, Mutant Pride, Mutant Rights, learning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17172932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erisden/pseuds/Erisden
Summary: "Please. My whole life is a lie. I just need to know. Who am I?"Disconnected from his old friends and on the run with Lenny, David realises that there's more to himself than he thinks, and that he has no idea what is in his mind, who is in his mind, or just how many there are. Divad and Dvd show him that there is more than just them. So begins David's arduous journey to learn how to gain the control over his mind - and learn who he truly is.Marvel comics/show crossover fic. AU as of Season 2. Ratings/warnings/tags will be updated as the fic progresses.





	1. Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired heavily by the events of X-Men: Legacy, Vol 2, which focuses on David Haller. Also inspired by the bits and pieces of the comics that feature David and his alters. I thought the show needed this, so I wrote it myself.
> 
> Strap in, folks, this will be a long journey.
> 
> Thanks to Hexiva for beta!

David sat at the edge of his bed, leaned forward over his thighs, his face in his hands and his fingers dug into his temples. Inside, he was quavering, his vital organs holding together the swell of overwhelming tension that threatening to burst through the seams. His skin felt too hot, too feverish, and his head pounded: from thinking, from worrying, from wondering just what was wrong with him that Lenny had taken to complaining about him. This time, he’d gotten into a little argument with Lenny about his doing something that he, by all means, _couldn’t remember doing_ . Not a big argument. It wasn’t the first time she’d brought it up, and it was the frequency of her mentioning it that had finally worn on David’s nerves. She’d said the same thing yesterday - though she’d told him it was last week. It was all confusing, overwhelming, and exhausting. He didn’t need to be arguing with Lenny when a whole organisation was after their asses. She wasn’t supposed to tell him he had issues. She was supposed to be on _his_ side.

He was resting here, alone for the moment in his imagined childhood bedroom, taking a moment’s respite to regather his wits before he lost them entirely. The real world had taken him up and tossed him like a ragdoll, and he was getting tired of it. This was the fifth time in the past week. That was how long Lenny told him had passed, at least, but he couldn’t remember the half of it. He was exhausted.

Lately, David had begun to retreat here more often, when he needed a break from the world and the problems he faced. As it were, the other two liked it here as well as he did. Every time he stayed here, one of the two, or both of them, would eventually find their way here. No matter how badly he wanted to be alone, they would show up. At first, he wasn’t enthused about their appearances, but he’d found out quickly that he couldn’t exactly kick them out, either. His powers didn’t work here. He’d tried more than once to throw them back out again, but nothing ever happened.

So he’d learned to live with them - and, eventually, to tolerate them, for trying to talk him out of whatever corner these weeks on the run had forced him into. Their names were Divad and Dvd, he’d learned. Divad liked to remind him that he wasn’t thinking clearly, while Dvd thought he should be more confident in who he was. They clashed constantly, in that strange, brotherly sort of way that perplexed David even more than it endeared him to them.

He almost felt like he was living a double life: one in the real world, where Lenny and the dangers of being caught by Division Three and his powers existed; and the other, in his unconscious mind, where he could take a moment to breathe, until the other two of him showed up to talk his ear off about all the problems he was having on the outside. In a way, they helped. They forced him to confront the issue, and to make decisions about them. Helpers, of a sort, that his mind had imaginified to help him deal with his issues. They were like therapists, if the therapists in question were mirrors of yourself that you couldn’t get rid of and didn’t leave you alone until you actually got somewhere.

“ _‘I’m telling you, you did that, man’_ ” he muttered, in a high-pitched mimic of Lenny’s voice. “Bullshit. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“You ever think about the fact that you might be wrong?” That was Divad, somewhere to David’s right, probably sitting in his favourite chair by the bedside, leaned over his thighs. He’d shown up early. Perfect.

“I think about that all the time,” David replied.

“And?”

“I’ve just decided I’m not going to think about it anymore.”

Divad sighed in exasperation. “You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t listen to what we’re saying.”

With a groan, David collapsed onto his back, throwing a hand over his eyes. He knew Divad was probably wearing that amused little smirk on his face, like he knew every one of David’s deepest, darkest secrets - so deep that even David didn’t know what they were. Sometimes, David believed it. Sometimes - like right now, for instance - he just wanted to wipe the smirk right off. Make him taste his own medicine.

“You,” David growled, not lifting his arm, “are the most useless, most _difficult_ p-... person, thing, thought - whatever the _hell_ you are - I’ve ever had the _displeasure_ of knowing in my entire life, you know that?”

Seemed Divad wanted to get cocky and remind him that that was the wrong thing to ask. “Yeah, I kind of do. I’m in your head twenty-four seven, seven days a week, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. All day, every day, baby.”

That wasn’t what David wanted to hear. With a grunt, he slammed his arm back down on the sheets, sitting up so that he could press his fingers into his eyelids. Everything was always better when he saw stars. “I didn’t ask for you to be in my head. You _or_ Dvd. You were just here, one day, talking to me like you owned the place. But it’s _my_ place, it’s _my_ head. You and Dvd are just living here without paying your rent.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” Divad laughed, sitting up straight and crossing his legs. “ _‘Living here without paying our rent_ ’? I hate to break it to you, but we’re not just people who need homes, who’ll just find somewhere else to stay when the landlord kicks us out. We’re as present as you are.”

The landlord, in question, being David, of course. He didn’t like that thought, and he sure as hell didn’t like talking about it with Divad, who kept telling him he was sick, he was confused, he was _delusional_ and needed to get some help before he drove himself crazy. “You don’t get it. You’re not the one living out there, okay? You’re not _me_ . You’re just people I imagine up in my head. You know… _imaginary_ friends. Figments of my imagination to help me get through all my shit.”

Another voice called from the other end of the room. “Will you shut up?”

David sighed, looking to Dvd, his mouth already open to argue back something about how he was _right_ , and that they weren’t real. Dvd’s eyes weren’t on him, though. They were on Divad. Smugness pressed against the front of David’s ribcage.

“You’re not the only one who can talk to him,” Divad quipped.

“Yeah, but I’m the only one who has anything _decent_ to say in the first place.”

“Like you have anything decent to say? All you do is go around telling him that he’s not sick, and that everyone around him is wrong, and that he doesn’t need anyone.”

“I’m right.”

Between the two arguing figments of his imagination, David groaned. This was an argument he’d heard before.

“No, you’re not.” Divad stood from his seat. “Everyone _needs_ people. Pretty sure we learned that in Clockworks. ‘Every human being needs physical affection to feel love.’”

Dvd made a face, crossing his arms. “David’s not a human being. He’s a mutant. He’s a god. He doesn’t need -”

“What I _need_ right now,” David cut in, “is for you two to shut up. You argue about this every time I’m here. I’m _tired_ of it. I didn’t come here to argue about which one of you is right and which one of you is wrong. I couldn’t care less.”

Dvd made his way to the desk. “What’s your problem, then?” He raised his eyebrows, leaning his hip against the edge and running his fingers along the side of the lamp. David’s childhood lamp. Blue, with small white lines connecting an array of small white dots, where light could escape and dance across the walls and the ceiling and the bed and David’s skin. Everything else in the room, too, was constructed out of the fragmented memories of his childhood. The desk with the scratch in its side, where, at the age of nine, David had accidentally dragged the sharp end of his pencil box. The little telescope that his father had bought for him when he was thirteen, so that he could look out at the stars at night whenever he wanted to. His framed Kepler-186f and Enceladus posters to either side of his bed. And the lights - the seven lights, all lit up at once, not too bright, but just bright enough to ward away the shadows. It was what David’s mind had made for him to feel safe, Divad had told him once. Whenever he left real life and pulled himself into his mind, he landed here. It was his bubble of safety.

“My problem…” David frowned. There was a reason he was here, but it was hard for him to articulate. Talking about it made it sound real. “My problem is, Lenny keeps saying I’m acting weird, and I don’t know why.”

“Weirder than you acted when you were at Clockworks for six years?” Divad piped up, much to David’s dismay, and much, as he saw Dvd shift out of the corner of his eye, to Dvd’s dismay, too. Both of them had mouths to rival the beating ocean tides, but Divad drew out the parts of David that he had shoved deep down within himself years ago and never tried to think about again. “Cause Clockworks was where she met you, and you were definitely in no state worth being called ‘normal.’”

“First of all,” David said, “don’t bring that up again. And second of all, yes, weirder than I was at Clockworks.” He hated saying that. Lenny knew what it was like at Clockworks. The endless hours of sluggish thought; the ceaseless chatters and movements of the patients around them as they waded through the hospital, day after day; the piercing eyes of Clockworks staff as they watched their every move, like hawks waiting for the kill. They shared that nightmare, and she would never hold how he was like there against him. _He’d_ never hold how she was like there against _her_ . “She told me it was like there were two of me. The person I am, you know, right now… and then there’s another side of me that’s… that’s _different_.”

“Different how?” Divad prodded, but it didn’t feel invasive. Only curious.

David shook his head and looked down at his hands on his lap. Lenny had never been the quiet type, had never been the person who would hold her tongue when she had something to say. She hadn’t held back when he had asked what she meant. “You act like a totally different person sometimes, man,” she had told him in the hotel room a few nights ago, straddling her chair backwards and hugging the back with both arms. It was so wide that she could only just manage to secure her fingers at the sides, and her knuckles were white with the strain. It had been hours later, when David was lying in bed, unable to sleep even to the sound of Lenny’s rhythmic breathing in the other bed, that he had realised she was nervous. She was hugging her chair because she was nervous. “There’s _you_ , okay. The you who’s sitting here listening to me talk right now. That’s _you_ . Like the… like the, I don’t know, the _true you_ or something, okay? Shit, I don’t know. And then… then there’s this other you, that doesn’t act like you. I mean, you’re still _you_ , in the body, but you’re _not_ . You’re, like, mean. More serious, and...” She leaned forward, lowering her voice, as though she was trying not to let someone hear. “And sometimes, you say these weird things. About how you’re… you’re _God_ , or something, which - I don’t judge, man, okay. That’s great. You can be God if you want. I don’t care.”

He had followed everything but except the whole ‘God’ thing, which was something he knew he wouldn’t say. Not like that. He had powers, sure, but he wasn’t God. That sounded more like something Farouk would say, but Farouk was out of his head now. David would have felt if he’d gotten into his head. “But I’m not.”

“See? That’s what _you_ you would say. But what you were saying - I don’t know. I thought, maybe you had - but - but it isn’t just that. Other stuff, like… _words_ you wouldn’t say. ‘Girdle’ and ‘airshrike’ and… ‘howdy.’” Lenny managed a soft laugh at that. “I don’t even know what any of those words mean.”

“Howdy?” David frowned.

“I know what _that_ one means -”

“No, I mean… you’re not screwing with me, are you?” Because he would never, in his _life,_ say ‘howdy.’

“No bullshit, man. I’m dead serious.” She let go of her chair and leaned back, making a throat-slitting motion across her neck. “Kill me if I’m lying.”

He shook his head. “Well… I wouldn’t say that.”

“So who said it?”

David couldn’t answer that.

He tapped his fingers on the bed now. “Different, like… I said things that I wouldn’t usually say. Not bad things, I don’t think. She didn’t tell me if they were bad things. But there were some weird things, and words like ‘girdle’ and… she said I said ‘howdy’ one time. I mean, you guys know me, right? I don’t just go around saying ‘howdy’ to everyone I meet.”

He expected Divad and Dvd to laugh at that, to tell him that Lenny was probably pulling his leg and playing a huge joke on him. Divad was tickled by almost everything he told him, and Dvd was brutally cynical. But when David looked at them, he realised that they didn’t find what he’d said funny at all. Neither of them were laughing. Neither of them had even cracked a smile.

David looked to Divad. He stood with his arms at his sides, his thumb and middle finger rubbing together, a brow lifted, as though he was in deep thought. From the look of it, whatever he was thinking about was troubling him. Like David had said something wrong, and now he was deciding whether or not telling him would be the best thing to do.

Dvd was no better. When David glanced at him, desperate for him to say something against Divad, he found him with his lips pursed, looking up at the ceiling with a scowl on his face.

That wasn’t good. “... Guys?”

“Did she tell you anything else?” Dvd asked.

“Uh… not really. I mean, she told me that I call myself God, sometimes.”

Dvd looked down from the ceiling so quickly that David jumped in turn. His eyes gleamed brightly, and David swore there was a glint if smugness in it too. Dvd _would_ like that. He was the one telling him that he was a god. Maybe everything he told David was leaking into David’s subconscious, falling from his mouth when he was busy zoning out.

“You trust Lenny, don’t you?” Divad asked. He finally moved, walking to the side of the desk opposite Dvd and leaning on it with one arm. From here, David could see the two of them at once. Looking at them was like looking into a mirror. A mirror that reflected the different parts of him that _obviously_ didn’t get along. Except, it seemed, this very instant, where they shared their trouble with matching frowns.

David tilted his head. “Yeah, I trust Lenny. Why?”

“And, hypothetically, you’d listen to her if she told you something about you was bothering her?”

David wasn’t an idiot. He knew what Divad was getting at, and it _wasn’t_ hypothetical. “You mean about me acting like a different person.”

“Bingo.” Divad drummed his fingers on the desk, tilting his head so far that his ear met his shoulder. His gaze was on David, and, despite the pose, it was the most serious look David had seen in his eyes yet. “You know what she’s saying, don’t you?”

“She’s saying I need to pay more attention to what I’m saying.” Was David confident of that answer? Not entirely.

“What he _wants_ you to say,” Dvd said, the scowl still set at his brow, “is that she’s saying you’re _sick._ That’s what he wants you to believe. That you’re delusional, that you have no control over anything you do, that you’re not thinking straight.”

“But I _am_ in control of what I do,” David argued. Why couldn’t they see that? He was who he was. He knew who he was. He was David Haller: brother of Amy Haller, now deceased because his best friend Lenny needed a body to live in; the guy who had been haunted by Amahl Farouk for three decades, shoved in a mental hospital because everyone thought he was sick, plucked back out again and told he wasn’t sick at all, that he had powers, betrayed by his friends and told he _was_ sick, that it _wasn’t_ just his powers. He even knew he was _adopted._ That was more than he’d ever known back in Clockworks. What was the big deal? “I’m in control. I know what’s happening.”

Dvd scoffed. “You’re a mutant with psychic powers, no shit you know what’s happening.” He jabbed his thumb at Divad. “Old wise crack guru asshole over here just wants you to think there’s something wrong with you.”

“If _Lenny’s_ complaining about it, then yeah, there’s something wrong with him,” Divad piped up. “She’s not the type to just say things to start an argument. Especially not with us.”

“You sure about that?”

David was starting to feel overwhelmed again. “Will you both just - stop it, just _stop_ it, okay? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not sick. That was what Farouk made everyone believe, somehow. That I deserve to be in Clockworks again.”

“No one here is saying you need to go back to Clockworks,” Divad clarified. “You think we want to be stuck somewhere like that again? No. Not even me, the guy telling you you’re sick. What they did - that’s not what you need. But your mind’s…”

“My mind’s what?”

“Powerful,” Dvd interjected. “Potent. Influential. You have all the power in the world -”

“Crowded,” said Divad simply.

David frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means there’s a lot more in it than you think,” Divad answered, matter-of-factly, as though David should have already thought of that himself.

He had, for the most part. He knew his mind was jumbled up. He knew he had issues. Sometimes, he still saw the Devil with the Yellow Eyes moving in the shadows from his peripheral vision, but when he looked, the monster was never there. There were nights where he dreamed about the voices he had heard - not Divad’s and Dvd’s, which he knew should be there, but the ones that Farouk had created, back when he thought he was sick. Sometimes, when he was awake, he still thought he heard them. A crowd in his head. But that was because he was still getting used to living without them. They were ghosts, impressions that had yet to be purged from his mind. He wasn’t sick. “How do you know?”

“I’m in your head, man.” Divad smirked, pushing away from the desk and pacing to the other side of the room. “I know things.”

“Yeah, but you only know what _I_ know.” David rested his hands in his lap, playing his fingers at the edges of his sleeves. “You’re just part of my mind. Part of my brain, my psychology. You literally _can’t_ know what I don’t already know.”

Divad looked at Dvd, raising a brow. Dvd looked at Divad, bitterly.

David’s nerves spiked. “Right?”

Neither of them answered.

Great. This useless talk was starting to get on his nerves. They obviously knew something that he didn’t, and neither of them wanted to tell him. It was _his head_ \- _he_ was the one who made the rules here, not _Tweedledum_ and _Tweedledee_ . “Look,” he muttered, through grit teeth, “I’m getting tired of this. I told you what my problem is, and now you’re making it into a _big deal._ If you’re trying to be ominous, it’s not working.”

Divad’s brow twitched.

Though he hadn’t said a word, Dvd seemed to know what he was trying to say. He didn’t look happy with it either, from the way his brow furrowed. “It won’t do any good.”

Divad tilted his head. “He’s gotta know sometime.”

Frustration spiked through David’s chest. “About what?! Just _tell_ me, or I’ll force you both to tell me myself. And believe me, you’re not going to like that.”

Dvd threw Divad an exasperated scowl and moved from his spot, only ripping his gaze away when he was right in front of David. His expression was so severe that David had to stop himself from taking a step back. It was always brutal, staring at an angrier version of himself without being angry himself. “You remember when you were sixteen, right? When you trashed that gas station and the cops took you to jail till our parents and Amy came to bail you out?”

David nodded.

“Close your eyes and think of how it felt to be inside that jail cell. How dark it was, how you could hear people stirring in the dark, walking around, hitting the walls, screaming and talking about how you were a failure and how you should never have been caught.”

David didn’t want to remember that, but he shut his eyes anyways. It had been a normal night for him. A get-together with his buddies, a little run around the city late at night, just to steal a little alcohol and wreak a little havoc. A little damage to a gas station wouldn’t hurt David. None of them were out to kill. They were teenagers, and they wanted a little fun. And David? David wanted to drown out the voices in his head for a little while.

This time was the first time he had gone to jail for the night, the first time he had ever experienced what it was like to stay behind bars. Before then, all he had ever seen of the inside of a cell was what had been shown on television. Black figures, white lights, and grey walls. Dreary and desolate. For the most part, they were right: about the misery, about the lack of life, about the hopelessness that seemed to leak from the very bars and seep into the atmosphere, into his skin, into his mind.

But they were wrong about the voices.

“Good,” came Dvd’s voice, soft and distant. Or maybe it was Divad’s. It didn’t matter. “Think about those. About how they filled the empty spaces. About how many there were.”

There _were_ voices. Dozens at once. Hundreds. He was alone in his cell, but he heard them all as though they were right there with him. Chattering, squawking, screaming, laughing. Sometimes he understood them, and sometimes he didn’t. Some of them scolded him, and some of them argued with each other.

And then, suddenly, the voices were no longer in his cell, but outside of his cell, some far away, slamming doors in other corridors, and some close, whispering harshly in his ear. Suddenly, David wasn’t in his cell either, but outside of it, free of his jail, free to bask in the presence of everything that existed with him.

“Open your eyes.”

David opened his eyes. The familiar childhood bedroom and all of its atmospheric comforts were gone, replaced by large chamber, the ceiling several dozen yards above, the walls extending out on all sides. His doppelgängers had vanished too, nowhere to be found. For all he knew, he was alone in this place, but he pushed away the unease that welled in his stomach in favour of regaining his bearings.

He felt as though he were in an abandoned building. Everything looked dilapidated, broken, freshly run-down, as though it had only recently fallen into disrepair from some disaster, it seemed, that wasn’t natural, given how much debris covered the floor and how broken everything looked. Pipes ran across the ceiling, gleaming even through the rust. The floor, cement and metal, was scraped and scratched and discoloured, as though years of heavy use had worn it away.

But this was the inside of his mind, and he hadn’t been present here. What _heavy use_ could these floors possibly have endured? Unless… unless it was a mental metaphor for something else. Great. He’d go with that.

“Where…”

He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled, half-expecting to find a monster coming to devour him. The figure stepped out of the shadow, and David saw that it was only Divad. He was dressed differently than he was in their childhood bedroom, covered from collar to ankle in dark, protective armour. The tops of forearms were encased in a thin metal covering, which came down over the backs of his hands and formed something like gloves. The fingertips were covered with an extra layer of green metal that reminded David vaguely of thimbles, if not for the needle-like points at the ends of each. They looked like talons, if talons were thinner and sharper. David had the distinct feeling that he should be protected too, but when he looked down at his body, he found himself wearing the same shirt and jeans he always wore.

“We’re in your mind,” Divad answered, hopping over a mess of rubble. The metal clinked as he moved. “Your real mind. Not just what you imagine.”

That didn’t make sense. If they were inside his mind, then this _was_ imaginary. “What does that mean? And why are you wearing that?”

Divad laughed and shook his head. “You’re a mess, man. We’ve learned to protect ourselves here.”

“‘Here’?” The more Divad said, the less David understood. He looked around again. If this was a visual representation of the inside of his mind, then he wasn’t doing well at all. Everything was broken. Everything was in shambles.

Divad gestured to the ramshackle walls and ceiling. “The Qortex Complex. Or what’s left of it, anyways. After you kicked Farouk out of our head, everyone else decided they had better things to do than to listen to me and Dvd. They broke out of their cells, and they’ve been running rampant ever since.”

“Wait.” All this explaining without explaining was giving David a headache. He lifted a hand to his temple, pressing his fingers into it. “I have… _no_ idea what you’re talking about right now. Slow down. Who’s ‘everyone else’?”

Divad smiled wryly. Maybe there was even a touch of sympathy there, but David decided to give the benefit of the doubt and say that there wasn’t. “We’re not the only ones in your head. So far, we’ve counted about… what, two hundred others, is it?” He leaned over and looked past David.

“More than that,” came the same voice from behind David.

David jumped, turning to face Dvd. He wore the same protective casing as Divad, albeit tinted pitch black. Over his ears sat an extra bit of metal that ended in two sharp point inches past his face, like horns. If he were to ram his head forward, he could impale David’s face easily. Something told David that he had already impaled his fair share of ‘everyone else.’

“Over two hundred, and all powerful,” Dvd continued, his gaze severe as he swept it across the chamber.

“Over two hundred _what?_ ” David asked, fed up with the fact that he was getting nowhere with the answers he was getting. He could get more answers out of a Magic 8 ball.

Dvd shrugged a shoulder. “Figments of your imagination.”

It took David a moment before he finally realised what Dvd was saying. “Wait, you mean two hundred of…” He stepped out from between the two and gestured to each of them. “Two hundred people like us?” If he was going to have to deal with over two hundred people who looked like him, he might actually explode.

“Not _exactly_ like us,” Divad answered, looking down at his glove and flipping his hand from one side to the other as he spoke. “The rest of them are _really_ different. Most of them aren’t even people, or human-passing. This used to be their prison. Their place of captivity. The place monsters went to receive their punishment for daring to make your mind their home. Not that they came looking for you. You made them up yourself.”

“I have _monsters_ in my head?”

Divad looked unfazed. “You had Farouk in your head for thirty years, and you’re surprised about that?”

“That’s different. I _knew_ about Farouk. Not right at first, but… he was always _there._ This ‘quartet complex’ thing -“

“Qortex Complex,” corrected Dvd.

“Whatever - it’s been in my head for however long it’s been in my head, and I haven’t known anything about it. _Nothing._ ” It simultaneously pissed David off, that the two of them had hidden this place from him, and intrigued him, that he had gone so long without knowing in the first place. This was _his_ mind. He deserved to know what was in it, especially when everything else in his mind already seemed to. “You should’ve told me _before_.”

Divad shrugged. “You weren’t ready to know about it yet.”

“So you _hid it_ from me? For thirty years?”

“Technically,” Divad says, “only about a year. Two, if you count the year you were in the orb.” He gave David a lopsided smile. “Relax, man. You were already under a lot of stress.”

That wasn’t helping. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’m under a lot more stress _now_ than I was at Division Three. I’m being chased by them now, for one, like some kind of dangerous fugitive.”

Divad looked questioningly at him.

“Okay. Obviously, this conversation is going nowhere.” And there were other things that bothered him. “Great. Fine. So, these monsters you never told me about. You said they’ve been loose in my head ever since I got Farouk out. That they weren’t loose before. Did he know about this place?”

“Oh, he knew about it, all right,” Dvd said bitterly. “Ever since your mind conceived this place, Farouk was the one in charge. He was the king here.”

“Why do you think it fell apart when he was gone?” Divad stepped over another small pile of rubble, crouching down beside it and reaching out with his needled fingers to sift through the pieces. “He had everyone under control. I meant what I said, about the prison. Your mind held the cells, and Farouk was the one who put the monsters in your head behind bars.”

“Farouk _was_ the monster in my head,” David muttered.

“One of them.” Divad looked up. “But he was a mutant before any of us were alive. He knew what he was doing. He kept the monsters our mind made up at bay.”

“He fed off of me and made me sick.”

“It wasn’t just him. If it was, your problems would’ve stopped when he left. You’ve always been sick.”

“I’m _not_ -”

“All right, that’s enough!” Dvd snapped. “We don’t need all the arguing right now. We’ve got company.”

That caught David’s attention. Up until now, he’d thought they were the only ones here. The chamber was large, stagnant, and silence, saved for their echoing voices. Everything felt dead here, at a supernatural standstill. And it still did, even as he searched around them for any signs of their so-called ‘company.’ “What are you talking about?”

Dvd pointed across the chamber. Crawling over a fallen pipe was an alien-looking creature. Its skin was green and splotched with brown, and its round head was devoid of hair. It had tentacles on its face, each of which moved in different directions and curled against the floor to help it along. It hissed at them, grabbed a shard of nearby metal - evidently, it also had hands - and threw it in their direction.

“You again,” it growled. Its voice was gravelly and grated against David’s ears, and it spoke slowly, as though trying to enunciate its words clearly. “Three of you. Are you _sssso_ weak that you need _three_ to defeat me?” Its eyes seemed to bulge from its face, and it looked as though it was constantly squinting as it looked between the trio.

David watched as it pulled itself across the floor toward them, several inches at a time. It couldn’t have been taller than just past David’s knee, and it hardly looked dangerous. As it came closer, David realised that the tentacles he saw weren’t tentacles at all, but small, trunk-like appendages that ended in mouths. It looked less like an octopus and more like a miniature Cthulhu with a nose. “This?” he murmured. “ _This_ is what you mean by ‘monster’?”

“Davey Suckathumb’s _ssssscared_ of monsters, aren’t you?” it hissed. “Scared of the monsters in your head. Scared of the monsters under your bed.”

“This is Tyrranix,” Divad said. He sighed, wandering to sit on a nearby slab of fallen cement jutting up from the floor. He was obviously unbothered by the mouthtube monster’s appearance.

Beside David, Dvd lifted an arm and began to fiddle with the locks and latches that held his armour in place. He still had a frown on his face, and looked toward Tyrranix every so often with a scowl. “He hates us because he can’t beat us.”

“ _Beat_ you?” David kept his eyes on Tyrranix. “In a fight?” The tiny Cthulhu was too small to beat anyone in a fight. He didn’t doubt Divad and Dvd could take him on.

Tyrranix responded to the thought. “My size isn’t what you should be worried about. Worry that you can’t hide anything from me. I know what you think. I am Tyrranix the Abominoid, and I know your deepest fears. Your darkest secrets. Your strengths and your weaknesses.”

David lifted his brows. That wasn’t something he would have guessed. “He’s a _telepath?”_

“And a damned good one at that.” Divad snickered softly. “Farouk used him for years, until you learned how to dial down his telepathy.”

“ _His?_ ”

“First thing’s first, kid.” Dvd stepped in front of David, wiping Tyrranix momentarily from thought and sight. He had removed the forearm armour and glove, and now he lifted it up for David to take. “You’re going to need this.”

David frowned, staring down at the thing. “For what?”

“These gloves aren’t just for protection from mind-sludge and psychic debris. You jam any of these needles into him, you’ll be able to control his powers. Same goes for the rest of them. You get the needle into them, you get to use their powers.”

“You think you can catch me?” Tyrranix hissed behind Dvd. “He doesn’t know how to use it. He has _never_ known. He can’t learn now. He is powerless here. _Powerless_.”

David grimaced and eyed the sharp fingertips. He carefully took the armour and fit it over his hand and arm. “Won’t this… _hurt_ him?”

“Oh, it always does.” Dvd helped him strap it over his arm. Not surprisingly, seeing as their forms were identical to each other, it was a perfect fit. “Most times, they feel a little uncomfortable, a little nauseous… and they complain like hell about it.” He smirked. “Better than what they want to do us, if they got the chance.

David shut his fingers. The glove fit snugly over his hand, comfortable. Like he was meant to wear it. Like he had been wearing it for years, even though he was sure he had never been here before in his life. If he had, he couldn’t remember. “And I just… stick these into him? Anywhere?”

“That’s how you do it.” Dvd patted him on the shoulder. “Careful, though. He doesn’t like it too well.” He stepped away from David, and as he walked away, he called from over his shoulder. “One more thing. If it doesn’t seem like anything happens after you stick him, don’t freak out. Their powers only work when we’re in our body. Found that out the hard way. Now, go out there and catch yourself an Abominoid.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to stay and help?” David called, but Dvd had suddenly disappeared in the midst of a blink.

When he glanced back at Divad for support, he found that _he_ had vanished, too. He felt his nerves begin to creep over his exposed am. So much for help.

“Mine is the power of telepathy,” the creature rasped, “and you will not _control me_ .” He stopped several feet away from David and stood on two legs. “You are far weaker than the Shadow King. Far weaker than the rest of us, and _all alone_.”

David’s expression flickered, but he stood firm, fingers spread at his sides, the glove at the ready. “I’m not weak.”

“Lenny,” Tyrranix hissed - her name sounded wrong, coming from his mouths - “ _knows_ you can’t control us. She’s seen it _hersssself_.”

“I didn’t know about you.” David shifted where he stood, suddenly tense. Who was this thing, to tell him he didn’t have control? Who was he, to determine that David couldn’t control them? He had control of himself just fine. “I just - I just wasn’t here to control you, before.” He didn’t know what he meant by it, but it felt right to say. “But now, I’m here.”

“Just try, boy.” Tyrranix let out another harsh laugh. “We’ll see how well you can control us. Your imaginary friends, Farouk - they all knew us better than you do.”

This was starting to get on David’s nerves. If Tyrranix wanted to argue, then fine. He’d let him argue. But he could do it _after_ he was caught.

David lunged forward, swiping his hand out at Tyrranix. In the split second it took for him to move, Tyrranix was already leaping back, staggering just out of David’s reaching. David’s fingers missed skin and overshot, and he took a moment to catch his footing.

Tyrranix grumbled. He was much more agile on his feet than he was crawling. “I know what you think. I know every move you make.”

If this was the only telepathic creature in David’s head, then that would make catching the rest of them easy. He had to believe that, if only because he was in no way going to believe that catching the rest of them would be this difficult. “Hold still.” He lunged again, this time aiming straight for Tyrranix’s head. It was large enough that he’d actually have a chance to hit it, if only the Abominoid stayed _still_.

But Tyrranix didn’t stay still. This time, he moved around David, managing to come closer enough to wind one of his mouthtubes around his half-armoured forearm. It was smoother than David expected, and so cold that it burned his skin at the touch. This was a living creature inside his head, David realised, capable of attacking him - and there were over two hundred other ones he had to catch, if Dvd was telling the truth.

“Not so _fasssssst_ ,” Tyrranix wheezed. He snaked another mouthtube around David’s arm and began to squeeze.

David’s heart sped painfully in his chest. He tried to rip his arm away, but the Abominoid’s grip was tight, and the cold of his skin was beginning to creep into his veins and up into his wrist, his hands, his fingers, numbing them. “No, no, _no_ -” This wasn’t supposed to happen. The couldn’t happen.

“Inadequate, worthless mutant. I will taste your soul, and then I will _become_ you.”

This was wrong. This was David’s mind. This was _his_ mind, not Tyrranix’s. These monsters had been ruled by Farouk, just like David had. The difference was, David had gone against Farouk and survived with himself and his energy and his consciousness intact. He was strong enough to catch Tyrranix. This was _his mind!_

“ _Mmmmmmine_ ,” Tyrranix growled.

“No.” He curled his fingers between Tyrranix’s mouthtubes and his arm. “You’re _mine._ ” And, with a sudden burst of strength, he wrenched the tubes from his arm, hard enough that Tyrranix lost his grip and let go. He pulled his arm out from the freezing grip, and when he looked down at it, he saw that there was a patch of redness winding across the skin that Tyrranix had touched.

He tightened his grip and yanked Tyrranix upwards, earning a pained cry. His fingers were nearly immobile, but he managed to sink the needles in before he was caught again. Tyrranix jerked and shrieked again, and this time his voice was shrill, tearing into David’s ears. The glove shuddered around David’s fingers, quavering like the engine on a truck.

And then Tyrranix went still.

For a moment, David thought he was dead. He reached out, tentatively touching his bare fingers to his skin, expecting to find that it was still freezing to the touch. To his surprise, the skin was warmer. Not _warm,_ but something closer to room temperature. Like the gloves hadn’t just made him more cooperative, but made his skin more comfortable to be in contact with.

He stood, hauling Tyrranix up into his arms. The creature must have weighed only a few pounds, but he _was_ breathing. David could feel the steady movement of his chest - or what he _thought_ was his chest - against him.

“I hate you,” Tyrranix muttered.

Laughter rang out from behind him. “We would’ve had that done in two seconds flat,” Dvd chuckled, “but you got him. Thought we’d have to swoop in and help you catch him, the nasty bug.”

Tyrranix squirmed feebly in David’s arms, and David dug his fingers in deeper to stop him. “Thanks for nothing.” He looked down at the glove. “What does this thing do?”

“Neither of us know,” Divad said with a shrug.

David frowned. “It looks violent. And you said you knew things.”

“All we know is, it lets us use their powers. To hell with what it does.” Dvd ran his fingers over Tyrranix’s head.

The Abominoid hissed. “I hate you. I hate you all!”

David felt a flicker of guilt across his cheekbone. This was a small creature, with a mind of his own. It felt sadistic, to drain him of his power and use them for his own purposes. It felt more like something Farouk would do, not David. He didn’t want to become like him.

_Sorry,_ he thought to the Abominoid.

Tyrranix made a sound that sounded suspiciously close to a scoff.

Divad clapped him on the shoulder. “You did good, man. One power down.”

Dvd grinned. “Just a couple hundred to go."


	2. Revelations II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With one monster under his wing, David follows Dvd and Divad farther into his mind. It soon becomes clear that David's mind, and all that's in it, won't leave him alone so easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some familiar comic faces. (:

The inner workings of the Complex painted an easy, illuminating lead-in to the inside of David’s mind, and the truth was, the farther they went into the Qortex Complex, the worse the state it seemed to be in. As they walked, they passed by broken walls, holes from heavy impacts gouged deep within them and cracks spreading from the ground to the ceiling in every which direction, like the branches that made up a flake of snow. Fifty feet above them hovered giant speakers that looked both crudely jammed into the walls and virtually pristine, as though whatever entities had caused this mess had left them untouched. Ruptured, empty pipes hung over their heads and curled beneath their feet, covered with specks of rust. David almost tripped over them several times.

“What are those?” David asked, gesturing to one of the speakers. He had moved Tyrranix to his back, piggyback-style, and wore his mouthtubes tied loosely around his neck, one armoured finger pointed outward so that the needle, which could apparently stretch out from the glove, would remain buried in Tyrranix’s skin. Dvd had been the one to suggest it, so that David could move around with one hand free instead of having to carry the Abominoid around. It had taken all of two minutes for David to get used to the feeling. Tyrranix, however, couldn’t. Every so often, he would mutter softly under his breath, or move around, but he was too weak to escape.

“They’re speakers,” Dvd answered at his side, his voice irritated, like David’s question was the stupidest one he’d ever heard.

Divad, at least, knew what David meant. “Those used to broadcast your thoughts.”

“They broadcast my thoughts?”

_“Used_ to. They don’t work anymore,” Divad said.

“They’re more like ‘quieters’ now,” Dvd piped up, which caused Divad to snicker.

David threw him a dirty look. He didn’t find any of this funny. “You’re saying there were speakers inside my head, reporting all my thoughts to every single, whatever, _monster_ here?”

Dvd shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Like, my private ones, too?”

Divad started to laugh. “Man, you really have your priorities straight, don’t you?” He reached out, dragging his fingers across the wall. The glove squealed softly. “We’re all parts of you. You really think we’ll judge you for your private thoughts?”

“I do,” Tyrranix rasped.

“Tyrranix does,” David repeated. Divad only laughed harder, and even Dvd snickered.

The creature shifted around David’s neck. “I hate you all.”

Divad smirked. “Let me rephrase the question, then. Uh, you really think it matters if we judge you for your private thoughts? Not that most of us do, except for little Tyrranix. A lot of us - these monsters in your head - exist without even knowing they’re part of you. This -” He gestured around the open hall - “is their home. Their world. You’re like…”

“You’re like a god, to them,” Dvd cut in, “and gods are made to be worshipped.”

“To be hated,” Tyrranix whined.

David turned his head. No matter what Dvd’s point of view, he wasn’t going to believe he was a god of anything. He didn’t even _know_ this place, let alone lord over it like some kind of supernatural entity. He was a mutant with psychic powers, just like Farouk was a mutant with psychic powers, and if Farouk wasn’t a god, then neither was he. “I’m not a god.”

“Your mind created us. Isn’t that how it goes? ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all the monsters he could possibly think of, and he jammed them all into one guy’s head and gave them each a different ability to command, and he became the most powerful man on all the earth and heavens.’”

David frowned. “Uh, no - that’s not -”

“Whatever. You learned it, not me.” Dvd waved it away. “What matters is that you can do whatever you want here, as soon as you learn how to actually control this stuff.”

Divad slowed his pace until he was at David’s side. “Don’t let him get you down,” he said, his voice low, but just loud enough so that Dvd could probably hear him. “We’ve both had plenty of time to learn what to do here. Now it’s your turn.” A pause. “Just don’t expect us to help you all the time. We’ll try, but there are some things you have to do yourself.”

Those words didn’t sound good to David at all. He took a moment to ward away the dread that came up his throat, swallowing it down and looking instead at Dvd, who had stopped in front of a branch off the large hall. David peered around the corner and into the passageway. It was lit dimly by a light at the other end. When he looked closer, he saw what looked to be a door, cracked just wide enough to let the light shine through.

“This way,” Dvd said, starting down the hall. The walls grew brighter as he passed, as though he were carrying a light with him - as though the entire place was shining _for_ him.

David didn’t move. “Are you sure it’s safe to go that way?”

“Please tell me you did _not_ just ask that,” Divad grumbled. Even when he complained, he still sounded like he thought everything was funny, and when he turned around, David saw that he was, in fact, wearing half a smirk on his lips. “I’d hesitate to call your mind ‘safe,’ man. Your mind is the epitome of ‘not safe.’ You’re the shining poster boy of ‘not safe.’ You’re the president of the ‘unsafe minds’ club, _and_ vice president.” He reached a hand out to inspect the wall, paused, and neatly stepped backwards over a large, broken pipe. “Not the treasurer, though. Those guys usually know what’s going on and can actually manage -”

“Shut up,” Dvd said, brusquely. He twisted around to look back. “Just follow us. Nothing’s going to jump out at you.”

Somehow, that didn’t help David feel any better, but he had nowhere else to go, and he wasn’t about to go off on his own in this place he didn’t know, where creatures lurked just beyond with their powers and their perils. So he followed. The light grew stronger the closer they came to the end of the passageway, and the walls became clearer. Both sides were as crumbled as the others - not that David expected any differently - but it didn’t take them long before they reached the end of the passageway.

Dvd went first, and Divad after. David stepped inside after them - and the Qortex Complex suddenly grew to life before his eyes into something spectacular. The room stood tall, its walls running a complete circle around them, and along its entirety were countless circular cells. Some had normal metal bars, and some didn’t have any bars at all. All were empty and charred with black scorch marks, or splattered with faint red lines, or scarred with gouges: signs of struggle. This had been the prison, David realised, for all the monsters in his mind. This was the true jail, the true place of captivity for all the creatures his mind had spawned since who-knew-how-long ago.

He looked up. The ceiling to this chamber was even higher than the first, towering at least a hundred feet above their heads. The cells were neverending, running from floor to ceiling, one on top of the other and side-by-side. Dozens of them, hundreds, too many for him to count. Apparently, this place had once been strong enough to contain what his mind created, if what Dvd and Divad said was true. Now it was broken, in shambles, the floor fractured in places and covered with debris. David had to walk carefully so that he didn’t trip and split his own bones.

Divad and Dvd had reached the center of the chamber by then. Beside them sat something that looked like a reclining chair, although the fabric looked hard and worn and uncomfortable and scratched with signs of a struggle. There was something lying on the chair. As David followed them, he made out the gleam of the metal - stained as dark as Dvd’s armour - the curve of the arm, the shapes of the green, needle-tipped gloves, fingers draped over the edge. On top of it laid a set of metal combat boots, the same colour as the armour, and David realised that this had once been part of a matching set. It was empty and lifeless now - in pieces, as though something else should have connected it all together.

“This,” Divad announced, lifting one of the pieces of armour, “is what we call the Hazeguard. You’re wearing part of it on your arm right now. It used to be what protected us from the others.” He motioned to one of the cells. “Before Farouk was flushed out, this used to be intact.”

_“Used_ to?”

“Well, yeah. Look.” Divad raised it higher, flipping it to one side and stepping closer so that David could see the way the edge had been tampered with. Hooks were broken, latches had been ripped from their places, and the surface was split and scraped in places. It might have looked magnificent once, but now it only looked like a shattered artifact. “You expect this thing to work now? It’s seen better days.”

David took the covering gently into his hands, running his thumb over the fragmented surface. Even if this was the first time he had ever seen it, and even if he had never seen it in full, he felt a sense of grief well up in his shoulder blades, like he had lost something dear to him that he would never get back. “What happened?”

“Well, one day, _someone_ decided to get rid of the guy who ran this place, and, in the process, it tore away any semblance of balance.” Divad nodded to the armour. “Including that.”

“The guy who ran this place,” David muttered, suddenly bitter, “made my mind his home. Like it was _his_ home, when actually, it was supposed to be _mine.”_

“And, like any good homeowner would do, he made sure everything was in order so that none of these other powers got out.”

_“‘Good homeowner’?”_ Really, he had to be joking. “Yeah, in order for _him._ Not for _me._ Maybe _you_ thought it was so neat and tidy because you actually knew about this place -” That was a jab at the both of them, for keeping it a secret from him - “but I had no idea what this was until, what, thirty minutes ago. An hour ago. Okay?”

Smirking silently, Divad let the armour down, so that David could hold it entirely, and withdrew, strolling around the battered chair and leaning against it. “You haven’t been here long enough to figure out what you’ve missed.”

“And you know what? I don’t care. Maybe I don’t _want_ to figure out what I’ve missed. If I didn’t know about it for this long, I’m sure it doesn’t matter now.” He was lying, of course. He _did_ care, and he’d get this place cleaned up. If catching everyone was as easy as it had been catching Tyrranix, then this wouldn’t take any time at all.

_“Ridiculoussss,”_ Tyrranix whispered.

“Great, guys.” Dvd stepped up to the spot where Divad was just standing, reaching down to unscrew a part of the armour. “I’m glad to hear the angry heart-to-heart. Good to know we’re actually getting somewhere when it comes to making sure we’re mad at him, but that’s not important right now.” He pulled a piece away from the rest and offered it out to David, and David saw that it was a glove, opposite of the one he was wearing on his other hand. “Right now, let’s focus on channeling a little bit of that into your monster-catching.”

Dvd helped strap this one around David’s hand. Much like the other glove, this one fit just as perfectly. “What do I do when I run out of fingers?” he asked, as Dvd helped him into the boots and leg guards and helmet. “I only have ten, and you said I had two hundred, whatever, _monsters_ to catch.”

“You’re not going to catch all of them at once,” Dvd answered. He knocked a piece into place next to David’s ear, which made David wince. “You can only catch, what, two, maybe three at a time. Four, tops.”

“What am I supposed to do if there are more than three around?”

Dvd snickered, stepping back and inspecting his handiwork. “You’ll have to choose carefully. How’s that feel?”

David turned his head. The helmet wasn’t squeezing his head. The legs and boots weren’t cutting off circulation to his feet or toes. None of it felt confining, or restraining. It all felt strangely perfect to him. “It’s fine.”

“Great,” Dvd said, pointing to Divad, who was now sitting on the chair with his back facing them, looking out into the rest of the chamber, “cause I’d hate to argue with this guy over about who got our proportions wrong.”

David frowned. “We’re all the same.”

“Exactly.”

He rolled his eyes, turning away and wandering across the room to peek into the cells, his metal boots double-tapping across the floor as he walked. The floors were discoloured, and the walls were scratched and chipped. The insides of some cells were worse than others. The worst ones must have held more dangerous monsters, David speculated. The problem was, he wasn’t sure what ‘more dangerous’ even meant. Not something he couldn’t control, hopefully. He’d survived this long without knowing about them - he’d survived this long without any of them overpowering him. Sure, his mind could apparently create monsters, but it could also create this complex place that was capable of keeping him from going completely haywire, and if his mind could do it, then he could do it too. That had to mean he was strong enough to do something about them. It had to mean _something,_ because if it didn’t, then…

He didn’t want to think about it.

From across the room, he could just hear one of his figments clear his throat. “Uh oh.”

“What?” He backed out of the cell and turned, expecting to see the two of them still there.

Instead, he saw neither. In their place was a great figure, looming on his haunches over the chair, his hands clutching the edge of the seat to keep himself balanced. Though he had all the right proportions, he wasn’t human, with his reddish skin, the bulging muscles in his arms and thighs, and the horns protruding from just above his forehead. He was a demon, and he spoke like a demon, his voice deep and gravelly, like a thousand rocks rubbing against a thousand rocks. “So, you’ve finally found us.”

Tyrranix gripped David’s neck tighter - David had to tilt his chin up so his eyes didn’t start to hurt. _“Ohhhhh,_ great,” the Abominoid whispered, from one of his mouths.

The other two were still nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Dvd and Divad?” David demanded, keeping one hand to the edge of the cell and moving along the wall. He had the feeling he should stay as far as possible from this monster for as long as possible.

“I ate them.” The monster began to climb slowly down the chair, long nails scraping the fabric. David was surprised to see just how hideously humanoid he looked. Without the horns, the sharp eyes, and the strange skin, he could have simply been another human. A bodybuilder, maybe. Someone who had known David far before David had ever known him. “And I’ll eat you too.”

That was the same thing Tyrranix had said, and he hadn’t gotten the better of David. Coming from this terrifying _ogre,_ though, it made his skin crawl. “That’s not possible.” They had just ditched them, that was all. Like they had when Tyrranix had shown up. They had ditched him to deal with the guy himself, so that he could learn. Everything was fine. Everything would be _fine._

The creature barked out a laugh, but it was dry and humourless. “I take no interest in exchanging words with you.” For a moment, he paused, regarding David with his milky eyes. There were no pupils and no irises, but David could feel his gaze burning into him, straight through to his soul. “Anything is possible here. Including my overpowering you.”

David shook his head, creeping along the walls. A quick glance told him he was on the wrong side of the room. He needed to cross at least twenty cells - and this demon monster - to get to the door. There was no possibility of doing that unless he distracted him. “Wait, just - wait. I _really_ don’t need this right now -”

Too late. The monster dropped down on all fours and launched toward David, and David, already filled with adrenaline and gunning to take off, bolted out of the way. He was smaller and quicker, and just barely dodged out of the way of the monster’s sharp claws, pivoting around the beast and sprinting as fast as he could across the floor. Behind him, he heard a thud. He wasn’t _about_ to look back to see what was going on, though.

Which he didn’t need to do anyways, because it was Tyrranix who looked for him. “He has already recovered. You think you can stop him?”

“I kind of have to!” David screeched, scrambling over the messy floor.

Tyrranix was silent a moment, and in that moment, a loud crack sounded from behind them. “Duck.”

Without a second thought, David leapt the few feet to the chair and scrambled to get behind it. Not a second later, something slammed into it, hurtling over David’s head and crashing to the ground. It looked like a part of the wall. How -

“He’s very _ssssstrong,”_ Tyrranix said, before David could even think of the question. His short arms wound around David’s neck tightly. To secure himself in place, probably. “Very strong, and very angry at you.”

“You won’t escape me!” cried the monster. The shudder of the floor beneath David’s feet told him he’d finally recovered and stood again.

Time to go. “Angry? For what?” David dashed from his spot. The door was close by. He could make it. “Coming here?”

“For keeping him in your mind all this time.”

“It wasn’t my idea!” David screamed. “It was my _brain! My brain!_ I didn’t even know he was here!”

He was almost to the door now. Feeling brave, he chanced a glance back. The creature had reached the chair and stopped to yank it out from its very foundations in the floor. It screeched in protest, then burst from place with a loud pop. Only when he lifted it did David realise what he was about to do.

“Away from the door!” Tyrranix warned, and David staggered to the side.

Not a moment later, the chair came hurtling past, shattering into several large pieces. Another three huge pieces of cement followed in rapid succession, effectively blocking the door from quick use. A few of the splintered bits of cement hit David square in the side and the head, sending him tumbling to the floor.

Tyrranix groaned. “Ow.”

“Shut it.” Coughing, David glanced around. Just nearby, between two cells, was a vent, uncovered - and inviting, for what it was worth - that looked just large enough for him to fit into. At least, he _hoped_ he’d fit into it, because he was already making a beeline straight for it, dodging all everything the demon threw at him. Miraculously, none of the other pieces managed to hit him before he ducked into the vent.

Behind him, he could hear the heavy sound of the demon’s feet pounding on the floor. He quickened his pace, pulling himself inside. He could fit, just barely, if he crawled head-first, so head-first he went, squeezing his shoulders in and making his way through. If he could just get far enough in that the monster couldn’t reach in and catch him, he’d be safe.

But he couldn’t move quickly with his glove preoccupied with Tyrranix. _Shit._ After a moment of hesitation, he pulled the needle back, plunging onward.

He felt Tyrranix stir around his neck and take in a rasping breath, as though he had suddenly realised what dire danger they were in. The mouthtubes loosened around David’s neck as he pulled himself away, slipping below David faster than he could blink and scurrying out in front of him.

“Wait!” David called. Before he could lunge for the Abominoid, something grabbed his ankle and twisted his leg a solid ninety degrees, at least. Pain shot through his leg, and he screamed, twisting with it. _“No!”_

“You cannot run from me!” the monster roared, his voice echoing through the vents like a train whistle. It was so loud that David had to grit his teeth so they didn’t knock together. “You’re weak here!” He tugged, and David tumbled backwards.

Tyrranix shuffled farther into the vent. “You’re in for it now,” he cackled.

“No - come back! Help pull me up!”

“Help _yoursssself,”_ Tyrranix called back, making no move to turn around or even look back. “This is _your_ mind!”

“Come back - come -” Another yank sent him slipping another foot and the Abominoid slipping from his mind. He gripped desperately at the vent to anchor himself for a moment - to buy himself some time. “Stop! _Stop it!_ You won’t win!” Maybe if he yelled loud enough, this creature would let him go and listen to what he said. If David’s mind had created them, then they should listen to what _he_ had to say, not the other way around. A fat lot of good that was doing right now.

“Surrender now, and I won’t make you suffer!” Another tug. By now, the monster could reach up his leg, and he did, digging his sharp claws into the back of David’s calves so hard that it pierced skin.

Not half a second later, David felt the warmth of his blood pooling at his wound. That hurt more than the twist. _“No!”_ he screamed.

The monster laughed. It sounded horrible. “Very well then. You leave me no choice.” His claws tore down David’s leg. Searing pain shot all the way up David’s body. _Shit._ If he didn’t find some way to get away from this thing before he caught him and tore him to pieces, then he’d die. At least, he thought he would probably die. And if he died here, in his mind - he wondered if it would be like a dying in a dream. He’d heard that dying in dreams meant dying in real life. So, great - would dying in the Qortex Complex mean dying in real life, too? He sure didn’t want Lenny coming back to find his corpse lying on the bed.

Another spasm of pain, this time sending pain up the back of his thigh, straight in between his legs. Everything burned. “Please, please -” He didn’t want to die. He _couldn’t_ die this soon. Not after everything he’d gone through: his failure of a suicide attempt, his six years at Clockworks, and then at fake Clockworks; his agonising exorcism of Farouk; his battle against him; the trial. He’d survived so much, and now he had powers, and he couldn’t even use them to protect himself. “Stop, let me go, please -”

If he could just get his glove needles into this thing, he could gain the upper hand. Hissing in pain, he pushed himself up onto an elbow, twisting around and reaching back to try and jam a needle into the monster’s hand.

The monster already saw it coming. He let go and pulled his hand away before David could get them in. David took the opportunity to yank his leg away as soon as it was free, pulling himself a foot deeper into the vent.

The monster’s chest rumbled with menacing laughter, and he ducked down to look through into the vent, baring his sharp teeth in a grin. “You can’t outsmart me,” he taunted.

“Just _leave me alone!”_

His words went unheeded. The creature reached in again, and he pulled his bleeding leg in farther, sliding another foot away. His calf felt shredded and the back of his knee hurt like hell when it was bent, and it took all of his strength not to straighten his leg back out. He was going to die. He was going to _die_ here, all because Dvd and Divad had ditched him to fend for himself. They were useless copies of himself, only good for arguing with. No good at fighting, and no good at actually helping him.

“Go away!”

As though he had been shocked, the monster suddenly pulled his arm out, tumbling away from the vent. A rush of cool air washed over David, and he took in a long breath. He hadn’t realised he’d been panting, or that he’d been out of breath. Only that he was in deep, deep pain. At least he knew now that it was possible to suffer actual, physical pain both inside his mind _and_ outside. Perfect.

He heard a loud thud, and then a roar, as though there was something out there fighting it away from the vent. He wasn’t about to go out there and see what was happening. That demon could just be tricking him into coming back out again. Stupid prey meant easy kills, and David would be neither today.

Another thud, followed by silence. David pushed himself up on an elbow, nervously stretching his leg back out. It was definitely bleeding. A few splotches of blood sat on the metal of the vent, and there was a long streak of it down his boot. _“Ouch,”_ he whispered. He’d never had a wound this bad before, on the outside, ever.

“We got him!” came a voice from just outside the vent. It didn’t sound like Divad or Dvd, though it was only slightly deeper. “Ah - I know you’re scared in there. Breathe, kiddo, it’s all over.”

So, naturally, David stopped breathing. He knew his own voice when he heard it, and this _wasn’t_ someone he knew. Another monster. Maybe the demon ogre had the power to mimic human voices, and he was trying to lure David out. Clearly, the creatures in his mind thought he was stupid. He didn’t make the best decisions in the world, but he wasn’t _that_ stupid.

“Hey.” The same voice. Its owner knocked at the wall by the vent. “You can come out now. He won’t be hurting you no more. We saw to that.”

David stayed still. “Who are you? Another monster?”

“No sir.” A shadow fell across the vent as the figure leaned over to glance inside. This guy had blue eyes, just like them, but he wasn’t Divad or Dvd. He had a mustache, and even from inside the vent, he looked significantly bigger than any of them. “Hate to disappoint you, but we look as human as you.”

Another voice sounded from far off. “Have you got him out yet?” This one was higher, and didn’t sound older than sixteen or seventeen. Female, David guessed.

“Go focus on Kirbax!” the man called back to her.

“He’s already gone, blockhead! Hurry up!”

The man grunted, looking back into the vent at David. “Ignore her. We were just fighting off your old monster.” He glanced down at David’s leg. “Jesus. He get you bad?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Well.” He reached in, tapping his fingers on the vent floor. “Come on out now. That monster’s been attacking you is gone now.”

David’s leg pulsed with pain that stretched all the way up his side and into his armpit. That didn’t mean he couldn’t still think. He wasn’t about to fall for this trick. From what he had experienced so far, all the monsters in his head seemed to know his thoughts like they were his own. “How do I know _you’re_ not a monster? Apparently, they all have different powers. How do I know that thing doesn’t have the power to shapeshift and trick me out of here?”

“What’s taking so long?” yelled the female voice.

Maybe-monster moved away from the vent. “Quit your yapping! I’ve almost got him!” With a sigh, he looked back inside. “If I wanted to attack you, I would’ve done it, kid. Would it make you feel better to know that I’ve got that brat with me too?” He gestured out into the chamber. “She’s the one that likes to set our monsters on fire.”

After years of dealing with Farouk, David could deal a healthy dose of cynicism. “How do I know you’re not working together?”

“We _are_ working together, kid, but not to bring you down.” The man reached his hand in, palm-up. A peace offer, and an offer of help. “Come on. Careful about your leg.”

If he was ever going to get out of this vent, he’d either have to crawl through it and end up God-knew where in a place he barely knew, or accept the assistance. On this leg, he didn’t think he could end up very far, and he had a feeling something else would catch up to him if he tried. Cautious, he reached out to take the man’s hand and pulled himself out of the vent, balancing on his good leg when he could finally stand. The man - who David could see now _was,_ in fact at least half a foot taller than him, had dark hair that matched his mustache, and wore a long buckskin jacket, light brown canvas trousers, and shafted boots - wrapped an arm around his shoulders and let him use his arm to keep himself steady.

David glanced around. The monster was gone, without a trace. There were no signs of struggle. No signs that he had actually been here. “Where did he…?”

“He’s gone!” came the girl’s voice from right behind him.

He jumped and turned. She was a girl, all right, much smaller than the man, with dark eyes that pierced straight through him and messy dark hair that was gathered over a long red bandana that she had tied around her head. She wore a strapless blue shirt and boots to match, and loose black pants. There were bandages, slightly singed, around both her forearms, as though she was about to get into a fight. She reminded him so much of Lenny that he could only gape. He could clearly tell she wasn’t Lenny, but the energy she gave off was every bit as Lenny as it could get.

“What?” she demanded, when he didn’t say anything. “You never seen a girl before?”

“No, you - you just -”

“Can it, slowpoke.” She cracked her thumbs, teetering back on one foot. “We got rid of Kirbax for you. You’re welcome for that.”

“I’m thinking you should get on his good side before he makes you into one of his needle rats too,” the man said. “Be a little more humble.”

“Right,” she replied, pointing at him. “Cause _you’re_ everything there is about being humble, right? Big Jack. Jack the gentle giant. Jack, the guy who saved Davey Whatshishead from the big bad demon, right?”

Jack grinned widely at her, and then looked toward David. “That’s right.” He offered his free hand to him. “Jack Wayne. Nice to finally get to talk to you in person.”

David frowned, but pried a hand away from Jack’s arm to shake. “Yeah. Hi.”

The girl stepped closer. She didn’t reach to shake, but then - she didn’t seem to be that type. “I’m Cyndi. I’m the one who does all the fight work. He’s the one that does all the big talk.”

On second thought, maybe she reminded him more of Kerry.

“Great, nice to meet you too.” He pried himself away from Jack, clenching his teeth and hopping to the wall. He slid down to sit on the floor, leaning his head back and shutting his eyes. His leg _hurt._ It hurt worse than the time he’d broken his arm playing soccer in middle school. It hurt worse the time he’d slipped on the ice and sliced his hand on the sharp edge of the pole he’d tried to grab onto. Right now, he was inclined to say it hurt worse than the time he’d forced Farouk out of his mind. He looked up at Jack. “Augh, is there any way…” Pain crept up his thigh like an old friend. An old enemy. “Is there any way you could stop this…” He gestured vaguely down to his calf.

“Uh huh.” Jack crouched down next to him, glancing his wound over. “See, the thing about pain is, it’s all stuff that’s happening in your body. We can’t do anything to stop this, but you can.”

“That’s _really_ not helping right now,” David muttered, as another flash of pain burst down to his toes and up around his knee. “How?”

“Tell yourself you don’t have it,” Cyndi said, pacing away from them and looking around at the cells above them.

“What?”

Jack pulled an unnaturally long handkerchief from his back pocket and tied it around David’s calf. “You have to get in the right mindset. The more you panic about it, the more it’s going to hurt. So try not to.”

“So - ouch - you’re saying I have to stop thinking about it?”

Cyndi trotted back to them, dropping herself down by David’s feet and crossing her legs. “It’s not actually real. Focus on real life. Next time you come back, it’ll be gone.”

This was too much. _“Real life?_ I don’t exactly know how to get out of here. If there’s some - some _door_ I’m supposed to go through to get out of here, I’m going to need some help getting there.”

“You’ve always been out there,” she explained, “unless they bite you. Or, you know, unless you let us get a little fresh air.”

“What do you mean, bite me?”

“They take control of you when they bite you.” She smirked. “The monsters.”

David glanced at Jack.

The cowboy nodded in agreement. “Brat’s right. Don’t let them sink your teeth into you.”

“What the…” This was all too much. He’d had enough for one day. “Okay, _okay_ \- you know what? Look, I’m sure there’s a lot to tell me since I’m new here, but I… my leg’s killing me, and I just want to… I just want a _break_ from all this, okay? I just want to go back to real life, where I can just relax for a little bit. No monsters, no getting torn to shreds, nothing trying to bite me. I’m tired of it. I just need to think. I just need a little bit of time to think about all this. Just a little... I didn’t come here for all this. Can I just - go back to my bedroom?”

Jack and Cyndi looked at each other. The both stood. Cyndi held a hand out, and David took it without hesitation, standing again on his good leg.

“Dvd got one thing right,” Jack said, weaving around them and making his way toward the door. “Your room’s the place you want to be if you want to keep safe. The monsters can’t reach you there.” He shoved the broken chair aside and tugged the door open.

They passed through - straight into his childhood bedroom. David glanced back into the Qortex Complex. He looked around the room. “How did…”

“You’ve got to learn how to control this.” Jack helped him to the bed. “Your mind’s full of potential. You just don’t know anything about it. Divad and Dvd are right.”

He sat at the edge. The other two looked so out of place here, and he suddenly felt a stab of worry that Divad and Dvd were gone for good now, and that there would only be Jack and Cyndi. They didn’t seem like bad people, but he was so attached to his doppelgängers. “Will they be back?”

“Those two wusses? Kirbax probably scared ‘em off.” Cyndi snorted, leaning against the doorframe. “They’ll come out eventually. They’re around here somewhere.”

David let out a sigh of relief.

With a rumbling laugh, Jack stepped back. “Get some rest, kid. And then, when you feel like it - or maybe when you have to - come back and pay us a visit. We’ll be right here waiting for you with bated breath.” He grinned, tipping his hat, and turned to the door, ushering Cyndi out. Before he shut the door, he turned to look back. “Just remember - your room’s a safe place, but you can’t stay here forever. Better if you come to us.”

The door clicked softly shut.

David looked down at his leg. Jack’s bandana was still wrapped around his calf, which had stopped the blood from dripping down the metal of his boot, at least. The entire leg still pulsed with pain, and the bandana was damp, as far as he could tell. Cyndi had said that it wasn’t real, but how was he supposed to believe that, when the pain felt as real to him as anything ever had?

He looked back toward the door. To distract himself, he stood back up, hopping over to it and cracking it open to peek outside. He expected to see the inside of the Qortex Complex. Instead, he saw the hallway of his childhood home, his room in the exact place it had been his entire life: at the end, adjacent to Amy’s, which was on opposite side. Every detail was clear as day, perfect. The complicated corridors and disarray of his mind had vanished, as though none of it had existed at all. But David remembered, and that meant it happened. It had to have happened.

Slowly, he shut his door, quietly locking it and limping his way to sit back down on his bed. It _had_ to have happened.

He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and falling back onto the sheets.


	3. Revelations III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outside of his mind, the events in the Qortex Complex plague David. On top of this, he must find out a way to tell Lenny that everything might be exactly what it seems.

David awakened lying on his stomach with a pillow on top of his head and the heavy hotel covers up all the way to his shoulders. The warmth of his own breath suffocated him, and he raised his head, reaching up to pull the covers down and push the pillow off to the side. The drapes weren’t open, but he could see a little crack of light below the sill, and knew that it was day out. He remembered lying in bed for half the night, listening to Lenny’s breathing and thinking about what she’d told him: about the differences in his personality and his strange behaviour and everything he knew he didn’t do. He couldn’t have done it. If he had, he would have remembered it. 

Now, he was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t right after all. If she knew something that he didn’t know, even without knowing what she knew herself. If there really were figments of imagination in his mind that weren’t exactly imagination at all, but real, living creatures, sharing some disorganised headspace called the Qortex Complex.

_ They take control of you when they bite you, _ Cyndi had told him.  _ The monsters. _

Was it a dream, he wondered, that had caught him up so deeply that he remembered it all even now? All the little details: the run-down chambers his mind had made up; Jack Wayne, the picture of the western cowboy; Cyndi, small and nimble and sharp-tongued, with an aura to rival Lenny’s; Divad and Dvd, telling him that it used to be magnificent, making him wear the armour; Tyrranix the Abominoid, telepathic and threatening but powerless; the demon that had hunted him and tore a gash down his calf.

The last thought made him flinch and roll his foot, just as a precaution. Just to check to see if that wasn’t real after all. No pain came from it, which only meant he wasn’t wounded anymore. It had felt so  _ real.  _ Nothing like dream pains, which were always diluted and never truly there, but  _ real _ pain, like he was fully awake and in his body. Like it was  _ this _ body that was suffering, not the astral body. Impulses, signals from the brain, working in tandem to trick David into thinking that everything in his head was real.

“You awake?”

David glanced over toward Lenny’s bed. She sat at the head of her bed, her covers pushed down, her knees pulled up to her chest and one arm wrapped tightly around it. Her other hand was settled on the remote at her side. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the television flickering. He couldn’t hear it. It must have been muted.

He pushed himself up on one elbow, squeezing his eyes shut against the groggy prickling. “Yeah.”

Lenny set the remote down on the table between their beds and pushed it to his side. “I thought you were going to sleep forever. You know it’s almost eleven?”

“In the morning?” David reached for the remote, checking the clock as he did. 10:48. “Oh.” He stretched his legs, pushing himself to sit. “How long was I asleep?”

“I don’t know. You were asleep when I got back, so… nine, or… ten hours?”

David hadn’t just spent ten hours asleep - he had come up right after dinner. Twelve, at least. But he didn’t feel as though he had spent all that time asleep, or unconscious, or whatever it was he was doing in his mind. Two, at the most, and the memories completely intact. Dreams were  _ never _ intact, and they faded fast, but he could remember every detail of those dilapidated walls and ceilings, every corner they had turned and every speaker they had passed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Dead asleep, man, I told you.” That was all she said, before she looked back at the television.

Finding it strange, David reached his mind out to hers, skimming the surface of her thoughts until he found what he was looking for. She was still thinking about yesterday, and their argument. Not consciously: the argument simply lingered on the edges of her mind, wading into the forefront of her thoughts every now and again and colouring her perceptions from afar. David  _ bothered _ her, even if she wasn’t fully aware of it, and he had  _ been _ bothering her for weeks, now. Just his luck.

He clicked through the channels, watching the screen with his eyes unfocused. In all honesty, he wasn’t interested in watching anything right now. He was interested in making sure Lenny didn’t worry, for the time being, about whether or not he was himself. “Thanks for letting me sleep.”

Lenny crossed her arms over her abdomen tightly. “Yeah. You looked like you needed it.” She looked over at him pensively, and an image flashed through David’s mind of himself, a frown creasing his brow and darkening his expression, looking down at her as though she were the world’s biggest shitstain. How he had looked at her yesterday, he realised.

He offered her a light smile in response and hoped that it would allay her troubles. “I was tired yesterday.”

Suspicion flashed through her mind, and David, feeling suddenly like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be, severed the mental connection and looked back at the television. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her scoot to the edge of her bed and stand up, running a hand through her hair. “We’ve got to leave soon,” she said, as she made her way to the bathroom. She wore the same clothes as she had yesterday. So did David - neither of them had bothered buying anything comfortable to sleep in. They were fugitives on the run. They didn’t need to worry about changing clothes at the speed of light when Division Three could swoop in on them at any moment.

He switched the television off and stood, making quick work of checking the room while Lenny was in the bathroom, in case they were about to leave something behind. They didn’t have much as it was. Lenny always had a packet of cigarettes in her back pocket that she changed every few days for new ones. David had a wallet, which he had nicked from someone hours after they’d fled from Division Three. “They won’t need it,” he’d said to Lenny and her mischievous smirk, still riding the high of their daring escape. They could do anything, he’d decided, and they could do everything, and they didn’t need to care who thought they were wrong. They weren’t.

They had the clothes on their backs, too. But that was all they had, and that was enough. Fugitives never had much to their name. David, though - David could make as much to their names as he wanted, because he was psychic, and he was powerful.

Just not as powerful as the demon living in his head, yet.

He shook his head, collecting their keys and waiting by the window. He was powerful. He  _ was _ powerful. Melanie had told him that he was the most powerful mutant they had ever encountered. That was why they were all scared of him now. It had to be. That was why they were more scared of him than they were of Farouk.

_ If a mutant like you can survive the likes of Farouk and come out unscathed,  _ came Dvd’s low voice,  _ then that means you’re the most powerful mutant on the planet. _

_ Are you seriously calling him ‘unscathed’? _

_ We’re unscathed. _

Before David could respond, the bathroom door opened, and Lenny came trudging out. When she spotted David standing, she let out a soft, “huh.” A pause. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah. I already have the keys.” He lifted them as proof.

Though it was nearly noon, there were people lounging in the lobby. This wasn’t a fancy hotel, but it was larger than the hotels David and Amy and their parents used to stay in whenever they packed and left home for a week or two. A man in business clothes stood by the entrance, one knee propped on his standing luggage, his eyes glued to his phone as he searched for, David discovered, when he cast the net of his telepathy over the room, the total time it took to get to the airport. A mother and her two young sons sat at a bench, looking in every direction for the father. A woman tapped at a large screen on the wall because she was bored and had nothing better to do. None of them paid any mind to the two of them.

He returned the keys, paid what was due, and followed Lenny out. He scanned the parking lot quickly. No one out here knew who they were either. Content, he fell into step next to Lenny. 

“Found anything?” she asked, and David realised she shared the same, paranoid thought about Division Three hunting them down as he had. She just sounded much calmer about it, as was her way. Nothing phased Lenny of the great escape: especially now that she was on a great escape.

He grinned. “No one’s on our tail. Why would they be? I hid us.”

“Hid us? What’s that mean? Cause… I’m pretty sure everyone can see us just fine.”

“Not like that. Hid our  _ minds.”  _ And just like that, his confidence returned, full force. “I’m psychic, man, come on. If I don’t want them to find us, then I can make our minds invisible to whatever tracking devices they can make up. Cary’s got nothing on my mind.”

Lenny grinned, but she looked at him with a funny expression in her eyes. For a second, David thought he saw worry flicker through them. He couldn’t be sure. “We’re like… we’re like outlaws, huh?”

“Except we won’t get caught.” David reached over, nudging her with an elbow. “They won’t take our laws from us. We’ll make our own.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, trotting to the sidewalk and glancing both ways. They had developed a routine since fleeing Division Three. Roam during the day, don’t get caught, sleep in a hotel for the night, teleport in the morning. Rinse, repeat. “We all know what you can do. Everything a mutant can do, you can probably do better.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” He caught up to her and followed her gaze. There was a corner half a block down that he remembered wasn’t very busy. No one would see them disappear there. “I’m saying, now that we don’t have those assholes telling us what to do and what not to do, we can do anything we want. We can go to Rome, or Tokyo, or… or we can get in anywhere we want to, we can buy anything we want to.”

“Yeah, except we’ve got a big, hostile government agency after us, kid.” She spun on a heel, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and lumbering up to take his face firmly into her hands.  _ “And I don’t want to go back there.” _

David reached up to pry her fingers away. “I don’t want to go back there either. You know what happened.” He had explained it all to her: how they had decided to put him on trial instead of Farouk; how they had determined him guilty of crimes he was supposed to commit in the future; how none of them in that room had believed in him, had been on his side. They were all brainwashed by Farouk into thinking he was the bad guy. He was the  _ villain. _ He deserved to have his life stripped away, the same way his life had been stripped away at Clockworks, because he was  _ dangerous. _ Bullshit. “I’m never going back there.”

“And?”

David inspected her expression. She was waiting for something. He didn’t like not knowing, so he gleaned from her thoughts what she wanted: reassurance, that he wouldn’t leave her behind.  _ “And,” _ he said softly, loosening his grip on her hands, “I won’t let them take you back there either. I promise.” She was half his sister, after all, and something in him still hoped that she was in there. “Neither of us are going back there ever again. We won’t see them ever again, we won’t talk to them ever again. They’re not going to find us.”

She was silent for a moment. This time, it was her turn to inspect David’s face, searching for anything that might give away that he was lying to her. But he wasn’t, so nothing gave any impression that he was lying, and she saw that and smiled faintly, letting go of his face. She looked so much like Amy when she smiled. It was her eyes that did it.

“You good?” he asked.

“Better once we get something to _ eat.” _ Classic Lenny, back to her normal self, acting like she wasn’t bothered by anything two seconds ago. “Come on, let’s go.”

They went, as usual, once they turned the corner and made sure no one could see them. If anyone were to see them teleporting, there would be more than questions asked. David didn’t want Division Three finding them this easily. He had to make it difficult for them - take a few years off their lives before they even thought of touching a hair on either of their heads.

He took Lenny’s hand and shut his eyes. Disappearing involved concentration, and reappearing in the place he wanted them to appear took even more, even if it wasn’t much. There was a restaurant deeper into the city that they had passed on their way to the hotel, and that was where they imagined them to be. A light pressure tapped at his temple.

And then he let go of Lenny and stepped away. They were standing in another empty alleyway, a block away from the place David had thought of.

Lenny’s complexion looked ashen. “Jesus, dude, I know it’s been a few weeks, but…” She swallowed, drew in a long breath, and let it out again. Just like every time they teleported, she was nauseous. “Next time, we’ve  _ got _ to get a car.”

“I still don’t know how to control that part,” he said. She shouldn’t even feel sick, was the issue. No one else ever did. “Sorry. It’s faster to teleport.”

“Sure, but I still hate it.”

And they were off. Getting the money was the easy part. A touch of his middle and ring fingers and a little thought, and he had the money in his pocket at his disposal. Lenny had questioned it once, the first time he had ever done it, and then he’d told her, and she’d never asked him how he got the money ever again. He appreciated that.

They ordered a light lunch, then spent the rest of their time around the city. Both of them needed a new change of clothes, at least, and there were plenty of stores to go to. Lenny bought a new pair of boots, two shirts, and three pairs of jeans. “These are  _ essential, _ man,” she said, when she saw the look David gave her. “Cut me some slack.”

So he did, buying himself two pairs of shirts and pants, and a jacket for good measure.

The made it to the next hotel in the early evening, when the sun was only just touching the horizon. They both knew they shouldn’t stay out late. Even if David had powers, he wasn’t sure what they all were, and they weren’t going to risk it.

Lenny had gone back to being quiet, David noticed. She dropped her bag of clothing at the foot of a bed, swiped the remote from the dresser and crashed on the chair by the desk. Before David could get a word in, the television was on.

While she flipped absentmindedly through the channels, he trudged to one of the beds and sat down. He leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

_ Talk to her about it, _ came Divad’s voice, somewhere in the back of his mind, as much as it was in the front.  _ You’ve got to do it sometime. _

_ Or else. _ Dvd.

David let out an exasperated breath.  _ Or else what? You going to kill me or something, like that demon? _

_ Or else she’ll never get it,  _ Divad chirped,  _ and you’ll end up in another fight. _

David opened his eyes, looking at the wall in front of him. After a long moment, he spoke up, but it wasn’t to Divad or Dvd.

“Lenny?”

“Mm hmm?”

He felt his nerves prickling at the tips and running down the insides of his fingers. “So I was thinking, last night, about the, uh, the argument we had yesterday.”

Lenny didn’t say anything at first. David looked over at her and found that she had twisted herself so that he couldn’t see her face. Probably to hide her expression from him. He imagined it might be a grimace, or an ugly look, or something bordering on irritation, that he would think of bringing it up now. When he read her mind, he found that she was only vaguely put off - and, by the frost that ringed the edges of her thoughts,  _ nervous.  _ He felt the sudden urge to change the subject.

But she spoke before he could think up something else to say. “It wasn’t an argument.” She shifted where she sat, pulling a foot in and leaning her head back. Her long hair fell behind her in waves. “We weren’t arguing, okay? I mean, it’s not like… I was  _ mad _ or anything.”

“Yeah,” David said quickly, “yeah, I know. Uh, but, you know, I came back to the room, and I - I was thinking. You said I act… different, sometimes.”

Lenny turned her head. From her angle, she could only just see David out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t speak.

David pushed on, ignoring the nerves that now crept through his palms. “I wanted to - to ask about that. The… the way I act. You said I’m not  _ me?” _

She straightened up in her chair, twisting around so that she could straddle the back. That seemed to be her favourite way to sit when she talked to him about this subject in particular, like the back of the chair was protecting her from anything David said to her. She’d sat like that the last time. “I don’t know, man. It doesn’t  _ feel _ like it’s you. I  _ know _ you. You’re, like…” She gestured to him. “You’re this guy, talking to me how you’re talking to me now, you know. You care about me. I was in your head too, so… so I know what you’re like.”

“Yeah.” David watched as she ran her arms across the top of the chair. Her fingers were curled into her palms. Those were nerves if he ever knew them. “I get it. And there are times where I’m just…  _ not _ like me?”

Lenny set her chin down on her arm and watched him with those striking blue eyes. “You’re not going to freak out on me, right?”

“No.” David frowned. “I think I found something out last night that I - just - no, I’m not.”

She looked intrigued. “Found something out?”

“Just - can you just - can you just tell me what you mean? Please?” He was getting somewhere. All he needed was for Lenny to confirm for him that there really were monsters acting in his stead, taking him over. “I think - I just - I want to know, from your perspective, what’s been going on with me.”

His words made her nod quickly. Even from here, he could feel her spike of unease at his urgency. “You don’t act like how I know you. You know, all that ‘God’ stuff. Your whole attitude, it’s like… it’s like you’re someone else. You, but someone else. It’s almost like…” She paused, and then shook her head.

David leaned forward. “Like what?”

She pursed her lips, as though she was contemplating actually telling him. “Like you’re being possessed by someone else.” Her hand reached up to her hair, playing with a strand absentmindedly. “Like the… the way  _ he _ possessed you, after he used me to convince you to work with him. And then, when you  _ did _ work together, and you didn’t act like yourself. You kind of acted like… how he would act if he was you. Or maybe it was the other way around. How you would act if you were him.

He could tell that she was nervous and put off by the very mention of Farouk. He couldn’t blame her. No one in their right mind wanted to talk about Farouk, if they could help it. And he definitely didn’t want to think about acting like him. “I get it. I know what you mean. But - it’s not him. I’d know, for  _ sure. _ He’s not in my head anymore.”

He hoped.

Lenny frowned and shook her head. “And,” she continued, “you treat me different. Not in a bad way, but it’s not like right now. It’s different. Don’t think I’m complaining about it, or anything, cause I’m not. Why would I be complaining, you know? You’re a mutant. You’ve got some weird…” She knocked on a temple. “Some weird stuff going on up here. That’s fine. Have all the problems you want.”

“I don’t have  _ problems.” _

“You’ve got  _ something, _ if you didn’t know about all this before.” She inspected his face. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like you anymore, man. No bullshit. I’ve been around people before with problems. We’ve all got problems with our heads, right? Fuck that normal shit. That’s boring. It’s you and me who actually got somewhere to go, right?” She rocked in her chair. “We can actually  _ go up  _ on the ladder of life, cause we were, you know… you know, _ nuked. _ Up, or sideways, or diagonal, or - or  _ whatever.” _

David hummed, scooting himself back onto the bed and crossing his legs.  _ Diagonal.  _ That was one way of putting it. She was right, in a way. Their lives were so messed that they couldn’t get any worse. In fact, now that they were on their own, they could finally make a change for the better. All he had to do was explain his situation.

Now was the hard part. The part he was dreading, because  _ he _ had to talk, and he wasn’t sure he’d made sense of much as it was. The part where he had to get it across to Lenny that there were monsters in his head. That maybe she’d met those monsters - that maybe those monsters were who she had been talking to all along.

He took a deep breath. “Last night, before you came back, I was thinking, right? But I was thinking in my head, in the astral plane, except it wasn’t the astral plane. I don’t think it was, anyways. It was my own head.”

“You sure you actually found something out last night?” Lenny smiled faintly to show that she was joking. She wasn’t very good at showing ‘reassuring.’

“I  _ know, _ it’s just - it’s complicated. But, uh…” How was he supposed to explain Dvd and Divad to her? “In my head, there are these… people, right? At first, anyways, two people, who look like me, and talk like me. But they’re  _ not _ me. One of them, he’s sarcastic and bent on saying that there’s something wrong with my head. With me. And the other, he’s got it out for everyone who ever wronged me. They’re almost like parts of me. Different parts of my brain, made into two separate people. I’ve been talking to them ever since…” He squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered their voices long before the desert, but he’d never  _ spoken _ to them before. “Technically, ever since Syd tried to shoot me.”

Lenny chewed at her lip. She released her grip on the chair and straightened up. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know what you’d think,” David murmured. “It’s weird. You would’ve said it was weird.  _ I _ think it’s weird.”

“You’ve always been weird.”

He shook his head. “Anyways, um, so I’ve been talking to them. And, I don’t know, I said something, and apparently, they were hiding this whole thing in my head. This whole…  _ place, _ Lenny. You won’t believe it, like a huge building in my head with big hallways and rooms and - and they showed me this one place, and there are prison cells - just,  _ everywhere. _ I guess my head, my - my  _ mind, _ it made all these monsters in my head. And these two people in my head who look like me, they were helping me by keeping them there? And Farouk, apparently, he… he helped too. I mean, that’s what - that’s what one of them said. He was living in my head, and he knew about them too, and he kept them locked up. Except, all these monsters, they have  _ powers, _ and I can use them if I want to. But I have to, like, catch them…”

Lenny was watching him intently. “This wasn’t a dream or anything?”

“No - I mean,  _ yes, _ I’m sure, cause I don’t remember dreams like this. I remember everything.”

The thing about Lenny was, she was a good listener. Just like how Amy was. She didn’t shut him down the moment he sounded crazy, like everyone else did. Her life had been just as messed up as his was, and for that, he was selfishly glad. “So… there’s, like, a building in your head.”

“Not literally. Um…” This was the hard part: trying to explain to her what he meant. “It’s easier if you see it. It  _ feels _ like a building. It has walls, and a ceiling. They call it the Qortex Complex. Said it’s been part of me for a long time, except I never knew about it, because… well, you know.” He wasn’t going to mention Farouk’s name again unless he needed to.

Lenny nodded. A frown creased her brow. “When I was in your head, I always felt like there was weird stuff going on. Like there was freaky stuff happening that I didn’t know about. People talking on one side of the wall, laughing on the other. I was in one drawer, all your head stuff was going on in another, you know?”

That got his attention. “Did you know? About the… the voices? The people?”

“I don’t know.” She squinted, thinking for a moment. “I can’t remember.”

“Oh.” Farouk must have kept that from her. There would have been no reason to show her. “Well, they… they know about you.”

“Yeah? Good things?” She grinned lopsidedly, standing from her chair and moving to sit next to him on the bed. David opening up had done wonders on her nerves. “Do they make you act like a different person?”

David lifted his brows. He had been about to tell her what they thought about her, and hadn’t considered that she would ask him anything like  _ that. _ “I… I don’t know. They told me the monsters do, but they didn’t say anything about them. Not that they’re not - because they’re not  _ monsters. _ They’re like people, but…”

Lenny clicked her tongue. “Dude, okay. Whatever’s going on with you, in your head, that’s fine. But I want to know about what makes you act like that. Like… like not  _ you.  _ Is it - what’s happening in there?”

David squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a long breath. The possibility that Divad and Dvd and Jack and Cyndi were the ones that made him act like a different person hadn’t even crossed his mind. The monsters - Tyrranix and that horned-demon - were hostile. They obviously wanted to take him over. But the rest of them? Dvd and Divad?

He wasn’t sure about them.

“I have to fight the monsters off, so that they won’t do…  _ whatever _ they do to possess me. It’s complicated. I don’t know if the  _ people _ do that.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, man. So just -“ She cut herself off, her gaze darting around him distractedly, as though she was thinking of what to say to him. “You don’t act like a  _ monster. _ You just act like someone else.”

That gave him an idea. Maybe, if he told her how everyone else acted, she would recognise them. “Okay, I’ll tell you how they’re like. See if it rings a bell. Uh, Dvd, he’s… irritable. He likes to tell people off a lot. Argumentative, I guess, but also kind of like me. I mean, he  _ is _ me, or… something, I don’t know. He’s stubborn.” He looks down at his hand, curling his fingers into a fist and opening them again. “And then there’s Divad. He’s sarcastic and d-”

_ “Wait,” _ Lenny interrupted. “Hold your ass, pal. Am I hearing this right? You said ‘Divad’?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Is that just ‘David’ backwards?”

David chewed at his lip, feeling suddenly sheepish. “Yeah.”

She snorted. “What kind of a name is that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t - that’s just his name, okay? I didn’t make it up.” He regarded Lenny’s amused expression another moment and decided it wasn’t important enough to keep arguing with it. “Anyways, sometimes, he doesn’t take things seriously when I want him to, but he makes some good points, I guess.”

Lenny tilted her head from one side to the other. “Does one of them call himself God?”

David straightened up.  _ “A _ god. Dvd does, but it’s because we have mutant… powers.”

“Then I know him.”

“You do?”

She shifted where she sat, uncrossing her legs and pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms back around them. “I think so. I mean, if he’s mad and calls himself a god… I always thought that was just - well, not you, but, you know.”

David pondered it for a moment. “Are you saying that’s what I act like when I’m mad?”

“Uh…” Lenny made a face and lifted a shoulder. “So he’s, like… another person in your head? Because I never, like - I never  _ noticed _ when you, I don’t know,  _ changed _ into him. It was always just you, but weirder.”

“I didn’t even know until last night.” The only thing he’d known was that Lenny was accusing him of things he didn’t do, which was more than enough for him. “I still don’t really know what all’s going on with me, but I’m going to try to figure it out. I just - I wanted to tell you.” Because she mattered. Because he cared about her as much as he had cared about Amy, and if he wanted her to stay with him, then he had to tell her what was going on. He needed all the help he could get.

“Maybe I can help.” She offered him one of her grins - that wide ones that Amy had whenever she shared a secret with David that only they knew - and David felt a little better. “Not with your head stuff, but man, if you’re going to be more than one person, then that’s what you’ll be. So…” She crossed her legs again and looked down at her hands. “Maybe next time, I can just ask if they’re you or something.”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” That was what he thought, at least. “Maybe I’ll be able to tell before it happens. And then I can tell you.”

Lenny was still smiling. There was a gleam in her eyes now, like excitement. “This will be  _ weird.” _

David pulled away, scooting off the bed and running a hand through his hair. “How do you think I feel?” Now that they had settled their argument, he was starting to feel more relaxed.

Contrary to David, Lenny moved herself back until she could lean on the pillows. “You’re going to get this all figured out, right?”

“Yeah.” He stood in front of the mirror, running a hand over his cheek. It was his face, but it was Divad’s and Dvd’s face, too. And Jack’s. And Cyndi’s. And everything else he still had to meet, it was their face too. “I hope so.”


End file.
